12 September 2008
A Healthcare Commission survey of people using community mental health services in England has shown continued improvements in care.
Most of the 14,000 respondents rated their care highly, with 78% describing it as 'excellent', 'very good' or 'good', 13% as 'fair' and 9% as 'poor' or 'very poor'.
A larger percentage than last year said they had confidence in mental health professionals, received copies of their care plan and had an out-of-hours telephone number to ring in a crisis.
But the survey, published on September 11, also showed more attention needed to be paid to involving people in their care. Almost a quarter (24%) of respondents said they were not involved in deciding what was in their care plan and 16% said their diagnosis had not been discussed with them.
Commission chief executive Anna Walker said: 'The survey shows steady improvement… but more must be done to improve access to care, in particular to talking therapies and out-of-hours crisis care, and to involve people in decisions about their treatment.'
PFsep2008
